


my chemical romance

by peaches (crocustongues)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (bad) chemistry pick up lines, Alternate Universe - College/University, Getting Together, KuroDai Week, M/M, Mutual Pining, rated T for f-bombs caused due to academic stress, they're lab partners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 04:36:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14561016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocustongues/pseuds/peaches
Summary: In his third year, Daichi decides to pick chemistry as his elective, regrets it over and over, until, in the end, he thinks he doesn't regret it at all.





	my chemical romance

**Author's Note:**

> im b.o.m.b. (back on my bullshit)
> 
> this was for kurodai week 2018 (YES I FINALLY DID IT AFTER MISSING IT FOR ENTIRE YEARS) day 2, for the prompt getting together
> 
> this is the dumbest thing ive ever written, partly because my beta is on a holiday and shes 90% of my impulse control

**I) Preparation of a standard solution**

Tetsurou believes in absolutes; the sun rises in the east, his landlord has a stick named ‘I hate college students and I’m not afraid to scam them’ up his ass, and rice is, without doubt, the best part of any meal.

In this moment, Tetsurou believes he is absolutely fucking screwed. For context—he wakes up in bed, to early morning sunshine peeking through the curtains, register why on earth his room even _has_ any curtains, realises that he is, in fact, _not_ his very own bed, and turns his head to see a snoring Sawamura Daichi, his nose tucked away in his pillow.

For some more context—he’s also just realised he probably, definitely, one-hundred percent slept with his chemistry lab partner. _Fantastic_.

In the middle of the worst mental crisis he’s ever had, Sawamura wakes up and blinks slowly, once, twice, and Tetsurou doesn’t dare look away, like a deer caught in the headlights. Sawamura smiles, finally, and asks if Tetsurou wants to stay for breakfast. Tetsurou’s brain is understandably thrown off, so he says yes, like an idiot, and instead of working out a way out of his current situation, the working parts of his brain shut off and he’s left wondering how deep Sawamura’s voice is in the mornings and how he wouldn’t mind listening to it all day for the rest of his life.

An hour later, the apartment smells of freshly cooked eggs (scrambled and completely on purpose because Sawamura totally knows how to flip an omelette and have it retain its shape).

Tetsurou’s is just north of embarrassed because Sawamura fills him in on last night’s shenanigans. He’d supposedly walked in, upset and frustrated about his _shitty landlord and his ugly rules_ —and here, Sawamura breaks off, laughing way too hard for Tetsurou’s liking. He’d offered Tetsurou a place to study here, in his flat, and it’d been late once they’d finished, so Sawamura had suggested he sleep here for the night before he could go and throw hands with his landlord and subsequently be arrested, which would prompt Sawamura to bail him out in the middle of the night. It sounds about right to Tetsurou.

The entire story is told with a too-smug grin and Tetsurou doesn’t know if he likes it or hates it or hates that he likes it. The last one is the likeliest option, he admits to himself quietly on his way home.

**II) To investigate the effect of concentration on reaction rate**

Daichi’s mood has, to put it nicely, dropped. To the depths of the oceans, past the hydrothermal vents, and into the Earth’s core. He wishes the ground could open up and do the same to him.

He regrets taking chemistry as an elective from the very bottom of his heart. High school chemistry had been easy, sure. The idea of an economics major picking chemistry as an elective was ridiculous. Why’d he really done it? 

He doesn’t know what the fuck a reaction rate is, and at this point, he’s ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent sure he doesn’t want to know what it is, either. 

_Take that_ , he thinks to his chemistry professor, _I’ve now been conditioned into thinking upto two decimal places, are you happy now?_

He groans again and smushes his face against the textbook in a vain effort to try and soak up knowledge through some kind of Daichi's warped sense of osmosis alone. Predictably, it doesn’t work. He’s definitely going to fail tomorrow’s test, and knowing his professor—who is plain evil, by the way—would probably have it count towards their final grade.

“Hey, Sawamura,” a voice greets from above. “What are you doing?”

Daichi squints at Kuroo, who’s sporting a far too wide grin. “I’m trying to figure out how I can die.” Great, he’d devolved into speaking in hyperboles. Why hadn’t he picked literature, where even his suffering would’ve counted tangibly to his final grade?

Kuroo sets down the cup of tea he’s been holding into Daichi’s hand. “You looked like you were, uh. Under duress, shall we say? I thought you might need some fuel.”

Daichi nods in understanding and practically scarfs down the pastry Kuroo’d brought with him.

“So, the test, right? What’s bothering the great Sawamura-sama?”

Daichi frowns and nudges his textbook around and points at the squiggly diagrams of molecules that Daichi only half understands. Kuroo’s eyes light up and he pulls over a chair to explain what, exactly, an energy profile diagram was, and why it really should matter to Daichi.

He listens closely, sipping his tea (unsweetened and bergamot), because Kuroo spoke sincerely, he kept his explanations short and simple and let Daichi ask the questions he really should’ve asked in class but didn’t. 

Somewhere between collision theory and calculation of reaction time, Daichi’d stopped listening to the words and focused on the excited undertones that laced Kuroo’s explanations. Who could’ve imagined this—someone excited and wholly passionate about chemistry. Daichi smiles at that because, well, it’s kind of cute, isn’t it?

“So, did you get it?” Kuroo asks finally, stopping for a breath, and Daichi’s still somewhat unsure of what a chemical reaction really entails, but he nods and thanks Kuroo for his time and the food.

“It’s no problem. You should ask for help if you don’t get it, instead of dying in an empty classroom,” Kuroo says seriously, before pausing, “or maybe, when the professor comes in tomorrow morning, he could freak out at a dead body and pass us all.”

Daichi smacks him with the textbook.

**III) The molar volume is the same for all gases at the same temperature and pressure.**

On Friday evening, Tetsurou is still in the lab when everyone’s done, rather unrealistically determined to try and finish all his lab reports in one go. By virtue of being his lab partner, Sawamura is seated next to him, also trying to finish his lab reports. 

The keyword is trying, because he spends more time being charmed by the TA than getting any writing done. It annoys Tetsurou, because he knows he’s being unfair. Daichi’s a good and diligent lab partner, and has a knack for remembering instructions word for word, and has never once cause any problems for Tetsurou. But he feels funny when he reaches for the pencil sharpener and sees the TA smile a Smile at Daichi, who smiles _back_ and—

He stands up abruptly and says, “Daichi, could you show me your readings for experiment 7?” 

Sawamura, who’s a little taken aback by the use of his first name, nods and comes over to look over the data for experiment 7. Tetsurou, who’s done this experiment a couple of times, pretends to hum and haw over the numbers for a few minutes and then writes it down in the corner of the page. The TA isn’t around when they look up, so Tetsurou asks if they should take a break now and Sawamura says yes, if only for the prospective free ramen.

The look he gives Tetsurou might have something more to it, something more knowing, and Tetsurou knows he’s going to wonder about this for the rest of the night.

**IV) In a closed system, reversible reactions attain a state of dynamic equilibrium.**

They’re in Daichi’s apartment again because Tetsurou’s landlord is an absolute _dickhead_ and has threatened Daichi the one (and only) time he’d gone over to Tetsurou’s.

Daichi’s supposed to be working through his statistics problem set, something that isn’t chemistry for a change. Instead, he’s been staring at the baby hairs at the back of Tetsurou’s neck for the last five minutes and wonders exactly how soft his hair is. What kind of shampoo does he use? His hair is a mess, as usual, and Daichi frowns a little every time Tetsurou brushes his bangs away from his eyes as he types out what’s probably a stupidly complex chemistry project. It isn’t Tetsurou if it isn’t chemistry, after all.

He’s thankful he only has one chemistry elective and not two like Tetsurou, whose other class has him up late and snappy.

Tetsurou yawns as he pushes back from the desk and catches Daichi staring.

“Like what you see, Daichi?”

It’s his name again, and Daichi suppresses the tingles down his spine.

“Don’t hold your breath,” he replies with a huff and goes back to his problem set while Tetsurou laughs.

**V) A catalyst increases the rate of attainment of equilibrium but does not affect the position of equilibrium.**

“So.” Oikawa says casually, despite the fact that there is nothing Oikawa does casually; every move is deliberate and calculated.

“So,” Tetsurou replies, eating his rice as quickly as he can.

“Tetsu-chan, you’re not being cute at all! You’re supposed to tell me how you’re going to confess to Sawacchi.”

Tetsurou chokes on his rice.

“What,” he says finally, after drinking all of Oikawa’s lemonade.

“You know, confessions, the thing you do when you like someone. Although maybe not _you_ , because you’ve been pining like an idiot for far too long,” he adds as an afterthought.

“What do _you_ know about confessions, all _you’ve_ done is stare at Calculus-kun’s butt for two entire months, now,” Tetsurou counters, obviously not as an attempt to change the topic of conversation to Oikawa’s ginormous crush on one Sugawara Koushi who shares calculus twice a week with Oikawa and Tetsurou.

“Mmm, but did you know, Calculus-kun is friends with Sawacchi?” Oikawa says, not phased even one bit.

Tetsurou finally recognises this for what it is. “You’re trying to get with Calculus-kun via my crush on Daichi, aren’t you.”

“Hah! So you do admit you’ve got a crush on him. Just fucking tell him, please, and put me out of my misery so I don’t have to hear you talk so wistfully about Sawacchi’s biceps ever again.”

Tetsurou bites into his rice rather venomously at that.

Somewhere else, not too far from the cafeteria, Daichi’s texting Suga, who makes fun of his crush but gives him some solid advice (‘JUST GO FOR IT’) so Daichi doesn’t block him over LINE.

**VI) Periodic trends can be illustrated by graphing properties such as first ionisation energy or covalent radius against atomic number.**

Sometimes, Daichi wonders if everyone and everything in the world is out to get him.

Case in point: the rain. It has been pouring relentlessly all morning and Daichi’s been hoping that after his last class the rain would’ve gotten tired and stopped but his luck had run out sometime earlier and here he was, running through the rain without an umbrella, miserable and cold and wet.

He struggles at the door for a couple of minutes, trying to get the key to fit into the lock when the door opens by itself, but not really, Tetsurou’s at the door, looking sleep-soft and rumpled, still in his lab coat, which Daichi vaguely registers as a minor hazard.

“Welcome home,” Tetsurou says, rubbing his eyes. “Landlord wouldn’t lend me a key to get in and I left mine in the lab.”

Daichi doesn’t mind that his flat has Tetsurou in it more often than it doesn’t. He shakes himself dry on the welcome mat outside and nearly slips. Tetsurou leaves him to presumably go make tea and Daichi glad for the one tiny thing that’s going right for him. 

He trips and falls on his butt right after that thought.

“You OK?” Tetsurou asks, miraculously appearing right beside him, offering his hand.

With worried golden eyes on him, something inside Daichi’s ribcage recenters itself. Something he doesn’t want to name (maybe he’s afraid, maybe he doesn’t have to, it’s standing before him with an outstretched hand). He makes the executive decision to just _say it_. It’s not like his day can get any worse, can it?

“Go out with me.”

And for a second, it seems like it has taken a turn for the worse, before it takes a U-turn and skyrockets exponentially. Tetsurou’s eyes grow wide and he doesn’t answer Daichi but hugs him tight, still on the floor, still wet, and still in love.

Later, once Daichi is in dry and comfy pyjamas and Tetsurou’s lab coat is in the wash, they sit on the bed, drinking tea and Daichi leans into Tetsurou—who smells of star anise and oolong and something tangy and sour, like chemicals—and Tetsurou figures it’s his turn and gathers all the courage he can find in himself and softly kisses the top of Daichi’s head.

**VII) Representing experimental data using a scatter graph**

Tetsurou takes full advantage of the situation and uses every single pick up line on Daichi. Most of the time, Daichi just scoffs and ignores it, but sometimes—and it’s rare, but it’s _happened_ , so _there_ , Oikawa, you _misbeliever_ —Daichi splutters and looks away, the tips of his ears turning red.

Tetsurou loves that.

There’s a few changes since they started dating, the semester’s finally over and Daichi’s over the moon about finally getting rid of chemistry forever. With Tetsurou’s help, he’d scraped together an acceptable grade (a _B_ , which, to be fair, was fucking _fantastic_ , considering the situation).

They live together now, in Daichi’s flat. Daichi had accompanied Tetsurou when he’d finally confronted him, mainly so Tetsurou didn’t do anything stupid, like run away without saying anything, and they’d made off with all of Tetsurou’s stuff as quickly as they could.

Oikawa and Calculus-kun blatantly flirt, right over Tetsurou’s calculus notes. He liked it better when Oikawa pined from far away, but there are things you sacrifice in the name of love. 

**To: Dai <3**  
_wanna meet up so i can excite your natural frequency?_

**From: Dai <3**  
_We live in the same flat, I am right next to you._

**To: Dai <3**  
_are you made of copper? beause i Cu in a relationship with me_

**From: Dai <3**  
_We are DATING_

**To: Dai <3**  
_you’re my first priority functional group_

**From: Dai <3**  
_STOP_

**From: Dai <3**  
_You must be the pKa of phenol, a solid 10_

**To: Dai <3**  
_...omg_

Daichi doesn’t regret sending that one because it makes Tetsurou blush and abandon his post at the table to come join Daichi on bed, and Daichi gives in to his hedonist tendencies and makes the most of the soft lips on his own.

**Author's Note:**

> yes, one of my majors is biochem, and yes, these are fully inspired by real life incidents. 
> 
> let me know if u liked it! throw ur validation into the void that is my heart!
> 
> u could find me on tumblr [@iceandbrimstone](https://iceandbrimstone.tumblr.com/) but it is impossible to know simultaneously the exact position and momentum of a particle (;


End file.
